The heat sits a crouched gargoyle

Hunched right outside the door

The moon does not linger

The shadow of night recedes

Both fleeing quickly

No longer able to offer brief respite

We struggle to move or even breathe

The air thickened

Heavier than any hope we carry

The sun become a brutal god

Indifferent to our desperate pleas

Seeing only his reflection in the scorching shimmer

Our suffering the suffering of all

As innocents die and die and die

We hide ourselves however we can

Covering our ears so not to hear

Whispered spoken wailing cries

Unbearable knowledge

That we ourselves built this pyre

Now the entire world burns

I want the day to still but it has begun.

Light spreads across the morning

In colors denied by the austere moon

But celebrated by the gaudy sun.

Shades of every hue saturate the landscape,

Drenching the birds, the trees, the earth, the sky.

Even the distant mountains display a variegated garb.

I want the day to hush but it has begun.

Noise resounds from the dawning

In cacophony suppressed by the silent stars

But applauded by the clamorous rise.

Sounds of every tone reverberate across the horizons,

Resonating from every living thing and objects made.

I cannot close my eyes to this, nor stop my ears from hearing.

I do not join in the burgeoning revelry.

I walk quietly amidst this festive passage,

Somber; muted; unseen; a ghost.

A story begins in the middle.

That sentence alone makes my mind seize.

Any beginning is definitionally not a middle.

There can be a backstory.

Indeed there is always a backstory.

Someone must know this.

Otherwise the narrative is a partially connected bridge.

Any steps bring immediate collapse or as you continue, pitch you into the void.

How request writing to bear such burden?

Convince the reader to take this risk?

I lack the courage to ask either

But applaud in wonder others who do!